“This is a nail-biter, white-knuckle experience qualifying here,” said Gordon, who’ll start second Saturday night in the Southern 500.

Matt Kenseth set a track record to win his first pole since 2005, his 179.514 mph eclipsing Greg Biffle’s mark from a year ago. Gordon marveled at Kenseth’s record-setting performance at the track “Too Tough To Tame.”

“You’ve got to push really hard. You’ve got to be committed,” Gordon said. “This track is narrow. It’s got a lot of grip, but the edge is right there. It’s really easy to break loose.”

That’s what happened to Johnson, a two-time winner at Darlington. His No. 48 Chevrolet slid in turn two, the back end crunching the wall then the front side bounding into an interior wall and coming to a stop.

Johnson’s crew ran out to help. He was taken to the infield care center for evaluation and released a short time later.

Johnson said that just before his lap, crew chief Chad Knaus’ “final words were, ‘Go like hell,’ and off I went and didn’t make it back.”

Johnson qualified on owner’s points and will start 42nd, his worst opening spot in 11 career Cup races at Darlington.

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2